US Denver Mint: A World Class Coining Facility

Date of Service:1906 to Present

Mint Mark: "D"

The US Denver Mint was established after the
discovery of Colorado gold in 1858. Even though the Mint was authorized
by Washington DC in 1862, many decades passed before the first Denver
coin was struck. Things have changed quite a bit since then. Today, the
Denver Mint is the world’s top coining facility, producing more coins
than anywhere else.

Hit the "Saga of the US Mint Chapters" link at the upper right to
choose other
US Mint facilities to study. The headings directly below are units of
the Denver Mint chapter.

On July 9th, 1858, William G. Russell of Georgia
struck gold near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte
River, located at the foot of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, in what was
then the western edge of the Kansas Territory. Others had found traces
of Colorado gold in previous years, but it was Russell's discovery of
high grade ore that triggered yet another great American gold rush.
Prior to Russell's arrival, only one family had taken up permanent
residence in the vicinity, but they were soon to have many neighbors!

This Collier & Cleveland
lithograph from 1859 depicts the confluence of Cherry Creek and the
South Platte River. The infant communities of Auraria (left) and Denver
City (right) are separated by Cherry Creek. Public domain image.

Within a few short months, the lure of riches
attracted hundreds of
fortune seekers to the area. Two small rival towns were established on
both sides of Cherry Creek; the encampment to the south was christened
as Auraria (Latin word for gold), after William G. Russell's hometown
in Georgia, and on the north side was Denver City, named in honor of
James W. Denver, Governor of the Kansas Territory.

Denver City was at first named St. Charles, but the town's founder,
Charlie Nichols, lost his claim when he temporarily abandoned it.
William Larimer of Leavenworth, Kansas resurveyed the area and hoped to
score political points by renaming the town after the governor.

By the close of 1858, the population of these two towns combined had
reached 300, swelling to 4500 by 1860. Fearing competition from the
community of Golden a few miles to the west, the leaders of Auraria and
Denver City agreed to consolidate their towns into one, to be called
Denver City. The union was celebrated by a nighttime parade on April 6,
1860, marching across the newly constructed Larimer Street Bridge that
joined the former adversaries. In November 1861, the city of Denver was
incorporated, about eight months after the Colorado Territory was
formed.

Colorado gold miners in 1859.
One can see Pike's Peak in the background of this engraving. Public
domain image.

Just as Denver was ready to come into its own,
larger amounts of gold
were found in the mountains just west of the city. To the south,
prosperous gold mines were opened in the shadow of Colorado's most
famous landmark, Pike's Peak.

At the height of the boom in 1859, at least 100,000 prospectors were
toiling in the northern Colorado gold districts alone. Mining towns
sprang up seemingly overnight, such as Central City, Idaho Springs, and
Black Hawk.

As was typical of rapid migrations of people into sparsely inhabited
areas, the Colorado miners and merchants had very few coins or paper
money to transact business. Gold dust was the primary medium of
exchange. Of course, gold dust trading was, at best, a very imprecise
procedure, ripe with fraudulent temptations.

A photo of the Clark, Gruber
& Co. building, taken around 1860. Who knows, perhaps the three men
standing in front are the Clark brothers and Emanuel Gruber. Public
domain image.

Three resourceful businessmen, brothers Austin
and Milton Clark, and
Emanuel Gruber recognized the need for coinage to service the
burgeoning population, and set out to capitalize upon the opportunity.
In 1860, at a cost of $5000, they built a two-story brick building set
upon a stone basement foundation, on the northwest corner of McGaa and
and "G" Streets (today 16th and Market) in Denver City.

Clark, Gruber & Co. quickly became a major purchaser of raw gold in
the Auraria/Denver City locale. Paying anywhere from $12 to $16 in gold
coins for an ounce of dust or nuggets, the fledgling enterprise then
shipped the precious metal to U.S. mints back east for conversion into
coinage. Even though the Treasury paid out over $20 in coins per ounce
of gold received from the public, the venture proved to be less
profitable than the Clark brothers and Gruber had anticipated, due
largely to costly freight and insurance charges. It was at this point
that they began to conceptualize setting up a private mint and coining
the gold in Colorado themselves.

Pictured above is a $20 gold
coin minted by Clark, Gruber & Co., in 1860. An unrealistic
rendition of Pike's Peak, later replaced by another design, is shown on
the obverse. It is estimated that only about 1000 of the private mint's
coins survive to this day. Image courtesy of the American
Numismatic Association.

After wading through some legal research, the
trio determined that a
private mint was indeed legal. On July 5, 1860, the coin presses, dies,
and other equipment needed to strike coins were declared operational.
Later that month, the first Clark, Gruber, & Co. gold coins were
struck and released to a coin-starved public.

By October, 1860, the private mint had produced a total of $120,000 in
gold coin denominations of $2.50, $5.00, $10.00, and $20.00. Sizeable
gold coin quantities were also minted in 1861, to circulate alongside
paper demand notes likewise produced by Clark, Gruber & Co.

The opening salvos of the American
Civil War were fired in April, 1861. In response to that great
conflict, gold and silver coins, always considered a safe harbor in
perilous times, were hoarded by an uncertain and fearful public.
Moreover, government sponsored paper money was viewed dubiously. As the
war raged, the Clark and Gruber Mint ceased coining operations, but
continued to issue bank notes, redeemable at full value in gold coins
minted by the firm in 1860-61. So while regions of the country closer
to the Civil War battlefields were suffering a currency crises, at
least in the Denver area, the monetary system was relatively stable.

William Gilpin, the first
governor of the Colorado Territory. Public domain image.

Abraham Lincoln named William Gilpin as the
first governor of the
Colorado Territory. Upon arriving in Denver in May, 1861, Gilpin
rapidly organized a territorial militia to defend the Colorado gold
fields against a possible invasion from the Confederacy. In the summer
of 1861, Gilpin headed up a Republican Party convention held in Golden,
where the local political powers declared their intention to push for a
new U.S. branch mint in Denver. The Clark brothers and Gruber openly
supported this proposal.

The territorial delegate for Colorado, Hiram Bennet, then traveled to
Washington DC, accompanied by Austin Clark. Members of Congress and
Treasury officials were impressed by Bennet and Clark's pitch to
establish a Denver mint. Several Clark and Gruber specimen coins were
sent to Philadelphia
for testing and analysis, where they received favorable reviews.
Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase then recommended that Congress
authorize a branch mint in Denver, and that the building, equipment,
and machinery of the Clark and Gruber Mint be purchased by the
government to make the new branch productive as quickly as possible.

Above is the Congressional
bill, as voted upon in the Senate, authorizing the establishment of the
Denver Mint, dated April 8, 1862. H.R. 287, 37th Cong. (1862). (View the page cited). Image
courtesy of Library of Congress.

On December 19, 1861, Bennet introduced a bill
to create a US Mint in
Denver. It was eventually passed by both houses of Congress, and on
April 26, 1862, President Lincoln's signature was added to make it
official: the Denver Mint was born!

A commission was appointed to research the value of the Clark and
Gruber Mint, but their efforts progressed slowly. It was not until 1863
that the Clark, Gruber & Co. sold its minting operation to the
federal government for a sum of $25,000. Immediately, the facility
underwent extensive enlargement and remodeling. Finally, on September
24, 1863, the new "United States Mint and Assay Office at Denver" was
ready for business. At the moment the new branch opened, no one could
have believed that it would take another 43 years before the first coin
of the Denver Mint was actually struck.

The first US Denver Mint,
sometime during the 1860s. The original Clark, Gruber and Co. building
was expanded and characterized by a new tower. In its days as a private
mint, this building produced many coins, but as a US branch mint, not
even a single coin was minted here. The structure was razed in 1909. Public
domain image.

The new Denver Mint took up residence inside the
Clark, Gruber &
Co. building as intended. Although the facility was equipped with assay
and coining equipment, ultimately, no coins were ever struck there.

Indian uprisings along the routes leading into and out of Denver
convinced Congress to indefinitely postpone the start up of coining
operations. Director of the Mint James Pollock cited "... the hostility
of the Indian tribes along the routes, doubtless instigated by rebel
emissaries (there being a Civil War) and bad white men...." as a
primary cause of no Denver coinage. So despite being officially
designated as a branch facility, the US Denver Mint was restricted to
assaying and refining bullion brought in by miners and converting the
raw product into bars stamped with a fineness rating, plus the words
"U.S. Branch Mint, Denver."

In the 1870s, silver was discovered near Leadville, returning
prosperous times to Colorado. The heavy black sand cursed by miners for
interfering in gold recovery efforts proved to be laden with silver,
once someone got the idea to have it tested. Fantastic silver deposits
were uncovered, eventually out producing the cumulative haul of
Colorado gold, dollar for dollar.

A Bird's Eye view of Denver,
1887. The confluence of Cherry Creek (bottom) and the South Platte
River (top) is in the background. In the foreground, the state capitol.
About half way between the capitol and Cherry Creek is where today's
mint was built, beginning in 1899. Image courtesy of Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.

The Denver Mint was stuck in the assay mode for
years. As law and order
slowly gained a foothold in the American West, the city of Denver grew
steadily in size, stature, and reputation, but still, no "thumbs up"
from Washington to commence coining operations.

As the years of inactivity stretched on into decades, nearly all those
persons responsible for bringing the mint to Denver passed from this
earth before seeing their dream of the "D" mintmark realized. The
fulfillment of that vision would have to wait for the next generation.

The new Mint undergoing
construction, shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Image
courtesy of the Denver Mint.

On February 20, 1895, Congress voted to
authorize construction of a
new, fully equipped facility for the Denver Mint. At long last, Denver
was about to fulfill its mission as host for a US branch mint!

The site for the new Mint building, on West Colfax Avenue between
Cherokee and Delaware Streets, was purchased on April 22, 1896, for
about $60,000 from the estate of former governor John Evans.

Construction did not begin until July 1899. The Italian Renaissance
style building was to measure 100 by 200 feet, occupy three stories,
and consist of 100 rooms. The original appropriation of $500,000 was
woefully inadequate, causing serious construction delays.

A postcard view of the Denver
Mint, as it appeared when it was new, circa 1906. In 100 years, the
exterior of the main building has changed very little. Public
domain image.

After a final spending tally of $800,000, the
new Mint was finally
ready for occupancy in 1904. All during this time, the old Clark,
Gruber & Co. building continued to function in its familiar role as
an assay office.

After all Mint personnel moved to the new location on West Colfax, the
decaying Clark and Gruber building was sold, and subsequently suffered
the humiliation of housing a vegetable market. Mercifully, the
structure was demolished in 1909.

The Mint's new machinery was put on display at the St. Louis Exposition
of 1904 before shipment to Denver and installation, causing further
delays. Finally, the first Denver Mint coins were struck in February,
1906.

Another postcard view of the
Denver Mint's early years, looking east up Colfax Avenue towards the
state capitol. Public domain image.

The early years of the Denver Mint's new home
were indeed eventful. In
1920, a Mint employee, Orville Harrington, smuggled some $80,000 worth
of pure gold (in the form of by-products of the coin manufacturing
process called anodes). The treacherous employee was caught red-handed
burying the stolen gold in his yard by a suspicious Secret Service
agent who was trailing Harrington. After receiving a sentence of 10
years in the slammer, Harrington was paroled after serving only three
and a half years.

A bloody exchange of gunfire highlighted another robbery at the Denver
Mint a couple of years later. Coins from the Mint itself were not
stolen, but rather paper money. The nearby undersized Federal Reserve
Bank frequently utilized the Mint's vaults to store overflow currency.
On the morning of December 18, 1922, a total of $200,000 in new five
dollar bills was ready for transfer from the Mint to the Federal
Reserve. Just as the bank's truck was loaded with the bundles of cash,
a car pulled up and out jumped three men with guns blazing. A bank
guard was mortally wounded before Mint security could return fire.
Under a withering rain of bullets, one of the thieves grabbed the loot
and hopped into the getaway car where he was joined by his companions.

Harvey Bailey, one of the
1920s most notorious bank robbers, was implicated, but never formally
charged, with plotting the Denver Mint Robbery. Bailey claimed his
innocence, but the allegation dogged him to the grave. Public
domain image.

A massive dragnet ensued, but it took 18 days to
find the bandit's shot
up vehicle inside a rented Denver garage. Sitting in the front seat was
the frozen body of one of the men, who apparently died of gunshot
wounds inflicted during the robbery.

The investigation linked the dead man to several gangsters who had been
on a terrifying rampage throughout the central region of the nation.

A portion of the money, $80,000, was later recovered in Minnesota. In
1925, federal agents announced that they had solved the crime, but
released no details. In 1934, the Denver Police reported that five men
and two women were identified as responsible for the robbery, and that
all of them were either dead or already in prison on unrelated charges,
but still no names were made public. Even though plenty of evidence
suggests that other conspirators were involved, no one was ever charged
with the crime. The great Denver Mint Robbery forever remains shrouded
in mystery.

Taking new gold bars out of
mold at the Denver Mint. Image courtesy of the Denver Mint.

In 1934, the Denver Mint undertook a new role:
that of a government
gold bullion depository. Billions of dollars worth of gold were
transferred from the San
Francisco Mint to Denver, thought by many to be a more secure
location because of its close proximity to the geographical center of
the United States.

More bullion shipments later arrived. In many instances, the gold
received at the Denver Mint had to be melted and poured into stackable
gold bars. Today, the Denver Mint houses the world's second largest
gold bullion holding, exceeded only by the Federal Gold Repository at
Fort Knox, KY.

In 1936, a new 6000 square foot wing was built. At the same time, the
old facility was renovated and modernized. As time passed, life in the
Denver Mint became increasingly busy, and with that, the need for extra
floor space intensified. Major expansions were added to the complex in
1945 and 1964. In 1996, a state-of-the-art die shop was built on Denver
Mint property. Now, dies for United States coins are no longer
exclusively fabricated at the Philadelphia
Mint.

Public entrance to the Denver
Mint.
In the first years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,
Mint tours were severely restricted. In April 2005, the Mint resumed
same day walk-up tour reservations, on a first come-first serve basis. Image
courtesy of Chance Brown.

The heartbeat of the US Denver Mint today
remains the 1904 building.
While the exterior of the turn-of-the-century edifice has changed very
little over time, the coining operation inside is world class, in terms
of sheer production volumes. In the year 2013, the Denver Mint alone
struck about 5.79 billion coins, a quantity that, believe it or not, is
still well below its full manufacturing capacity.

One of Denver's most popular destinations is the Mint. Visitors can
best view this beautiful facility and learn of its history by taking
one of the Mint's popular guided public tours. Reservations can be made online.
See the artwork and marble of the Grand Hall,
enjoy special exhibits and artifacts of the Mint's early years, and
come face-to-face with the coin making process. It is also possible to
obtain in-person tour passes through the Reservations Booth at the
United States Mint Visitor Center located on Cherokee Street between 14
Avenue and Colfax Avenue in Denver. These are distributed on a
first-come, first-serve basis.

The dominant D&F Tower,
built in 1910, is located only three blocks from where the first Denver
Mint stood. Image courtesy of deejaycd1969 of flickr.com.

Another top Denver tourist attraction is the
16th Street Mall. The
pedestrian and transit way adventure stretching through the heart of
the city's historic downtown district is characterized by beautiful
tree-lined streets, quaint shops, and roaming musicians. The 16th
Street and Market intersection where Denver's first mint, the Clark,
Gruber & Co. building, stood a century ago, is situated toward the
northwest end of this rejuvenated entertainment hub.

The city of Denver is rightfully proud of its Mint. Tracing its humble
origins back to the very earliest days of Colorado gold fever, the
venerable institution has witnessed the transformation of tiny
Auraria/Denver City into the mighty Rocky Mountain metropolis that it
is today. Indeed, a good case can be given that it was the Mint itself
that struck the foundation for the Denver success story.

Lately, the Rare Coin Values Index is behaving like it thinks its the Dow Jones. That would be an exaggeration of course, because the Index is not climbing at THAT meteoric pace, but it has now closed…